Hazel Nut

It took eight and a half hours for my hopes of ever competing on the Great British Baking Show to vanish. Of course, my nationality is an issue, but one that is potentially surmountable. What finally put the nail in the coffin of my Great expectations was this little saccharine masterpiece.

Now I am become Death, the destroyer of baking worlds. Photo by Lori Duckworth.

Every September, Oklahoma Today teams up with the State Fair of Oklahoma to host the Oklahoma Pride Cooking Contest. Some of the best home cooks from all over the state enter their best Okie-fied appetizers, entrées, and desserts for a chance to win some enticing prizes—including a one-night stay at any state park. 2019 marked the fifth installment, and the competitors stepped it up once again. The most impressive delicacy came from Edmond chef Sarika Alvekar. Her Chocolate Hazelnut Delight won best dessert and—unanimously among the six judges—best in show. Her recipe was so involved we couldn’t print it in the magazine, because it wouldn’t leave room for anything else.

As baking show addict and occasional IRL baker, I thought it might be a fun challenge to try out this nine-part recipe myself. I had never made a jaconde sponge, chocolate mousse, a mirror glaze, ganache, or pâte sablée, but I had watched someone else create all of those things. How hard could it be?

“I need to be there to witness this,” said Photo Editor Megan Rossman, with a dark chuckle.

We planned to get started on Saturday at 11 a.m.—I figured it would take about six hours to make. The mousse domes that topped the cake needed time to freeze, so I started prepping Friday night. I started at 8 p.m. with the butterscotch sauce, which turned out delicious. I then proceeded to screw up everything else: my caramel seized up and left me with tasty but not golden hazelnuts; in order to not knock the air out of my whipped egg whites, I didn’t incorporate them into my jaconde batter well enough; and I overbeat my whipping cream (for the chocolate mousse) and had to remake it three times. At 11:30 p.m., I finally popped my filled domes into the fridge and collapsed in a sticky heap onto my bed, already exhausted after only completing one-third of the recipe.

This looks like I’m meal prepping for the week, but this is all for the Chocolate Hazelnut Delight. Photo by Megan Rossman.

Saturday morning, after copious amounts of coffee, I was ready to begin in earnest. Megan acted as documentarian and moral support, which I greatly appreciated. And my grandmother, Margie Tinsley, graciously let us use her kitchen since it’s more spacious and has better lighting than my own—the better to see my mistakes by it turns out.

The pâte sablée needed to sit in the fridge for at least an hour, so I started with that. It’s a fairly straightforward shortcrust dough, so no major issues there.

Pâte sablée—which is roughly sandy dough in French—is the base of many tarts. Photo by Megan Rossman.

Of all the steps, the mirror glaze would prove the most problematic. I couldn’t get the consistency of the gelatin right, so when the chocolate dropped to the right temperature the whole thing solidified. I reheated it and tried again. When I poured it on my mousse domes—which did not set—it looked like chocolate sludge. But at least it was shiny!

“It is what it is,” I said for the sixteenth and not final time that day. Photo by Megan Rossman.

Back into the fridge the “domes” went, and I moved onto the French coffee buttercream.

If you’re looking for a refined dessert topper, I highly recommend this rich but not too-sweet French coffee buttercream. It was legitimately easy to make. Photo by Megan Rossman.

Making the chocolate cake wasn’t difficult, but for some reason mine wasn’t as solid as it should have been.

My only solace is that Paul Hollywood will never set his steely gaze upon these. Photo by Megan Rossman.

If we were just eating the cake, it would have been fine, but cutting and coating each cake round in buttercream and hazelnut pieces yielded a crumbly mess. After placing the iced cakes back in the fridge, I made the chocolate ganache with relative ease. Then I pulled my pâte sablée dough out, rolled it flat, cut, and baked it.

I only burned them a little bit, so this counts as a win. Photo by Megan Rossman.

Finally, I came to the last step: assembly. I plated the sablée cookie first, then topped it with a cake, then topped it with a generous portion of ganache, and several little dollops of coffee buttercream.

One’s reach should always exceed her grasp, right? Photo by Megan Rossman.

For the pièce de résistance, I placed one of my deformed little mousse domes on top and crowned it with a single “candied” hazelnut.

“It looks like a little sundae,” exclaimed Camille Wallace, the only person who didn’t immediately start laughing when I showed her the finished product. Photo by Megan Rossman.

Relieved, Megan and I sat down to enjoy a bite. The mirror glaze on the dome was so stretchy it was basically impenetrable without a knife, so we removed it and sampled the cake itself.

“It’s alright,” the two of us agreed.

For the record, Sarika’s version was one of the best desserts I’ve ever had. Mine was obviously a subpar substitute. But I actually finished it. It took me at least three hours longer than a GBBS contestant would have had, and it’s as ugly as sin, but I still did it. And hey, there’s always Nailed It!

Written By

Karlie Ybarra

Managing editor Karlie Ybarra loves to explore her home state—and meet many of its animal citizens—any chance she gets.